Habit: Annual from taproot or perennial herb from rhizome; hairs branched or not, glandular or not.
Leaf: +- opposite or not, entire to pinnate-lobed.
Inflorescence: flowers 1--few per axil, pedicelled.
Flower: generally nodding; calyx 5-lobed, enlarged and persistent, bladder-like in fruit; corolla +- rotate to shallowly bell-shaped, generally +- yellow, often dark-spotted adaxially; stamens 5, attached to hairy band in tube, anthers free, generally < filaments, opening by slits; style generally straight.
Fruit: berry, fleshy [dry].
Seed: many, 2--2.5 mm, +- spheric to reniform.
Species In Genus: +- 85 species: America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia.
Etymology: (Greek: bladder, from calyx in fruit)
Toxicity: Unripe fruit often TOXIC. Needs study in western United States.
Note: Some species cultivated for edible or ornamental fruit.
Jepson eFlora Author: Michael H. Nee
Unabridged Reference: Sullivan 1985 Syst Bot 10:426--444Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Physalis
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